Yeah, that's not gonna work. LCDs can be backlit because of the way the crystals are aligned-- random orientation when not powered makes them opaque, aligned along the electric field when powered allows light to pass through. Eink is an utterly unrelated technology. Backlighting an eink display would be similar to backlighting a piece of paper, except less useful. With a backlit piece of paper, you might be able to read it somewhat because the ink printed on the paper makes those areas somewhat less translucent, but with an eink display, the same amount of "ink" is on every part of the paper all of the time-- it is just submerged deeper in the display where you need light areas. A backlit eink display would transmit the same amount of light through it from every point no matter what is displayed on it's surface. Backlighting on eink would be utterly worthless.

If you could lay out a LED panel (ala Star Trek) of some sort opposite the screen (held in the carrying case of your choice) that might be useful though. But first you would have to find someone that makes such led panels (assuming they aren't still Sci. Fi. that is).

If I remember correctly, vugitan rarely lets reality get in the way of his/her grand schemes.

It's been a while vugitan... welcome back!

We all have our dreams of what we'd like to have be possible I think. 20 yrs or so ago modern ebook readers were still just a flight of fancy. I still find myself thinking of the P.A.D.D. from STNG whenever I pick up my Kindle 3. lol.

Using a resistor to control brightness is a waste of power. You want to use a PWM circuit to control brightness. You may find more room and get a better result if you try edge lighting the screen with multiple surface mount LEDs (and that PWM controller).

And I'm glad I'm not the only one who understands the P.A.D.D. reference. lol. While Kindle isn't quite as versatile as the P.A.D.D. its general shape, size and readability certainly resemble one I think. Of course ST has a history of using props that are based on ideas that later enter the real world.

Yeah, that's not gonna work. LCDs can be backlit because of the way the crystals are aligned-- random orientation when not powered makes them opaque, aligned along the electric field when powered allows light to pass through. Eink is an utterly unrelated technology. Backlighting an eink display would be similar to backlighting a piece of paper, except less useful. With a backlit piece of paper, you might be able to read it somewhat because the ink printed on the paper makes those areas somewhat less translucent, but with an eink display, the same amount of "ink" is on every part of the paper all of the time-- it is just submerged deeper in the display where you need light areas. A backlit eink display would transmit the same amount of light through it from every point no matter what is displayed on it's surface. Backlighting on eink would be utterly worthless.

lol. Actually I meant like medical sensors, 3.25" computer disks, cell phones and the like. Of course they did have consultants that they got ideas from though back then of course many of the ideas were still probably in the visionary stage (i.e. no one knew how to make them yet). Our world has certainly changed in recent decades.